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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

On the heels of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund last week who is accused of forcing himself on a maid at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan we now have another alleged attack by Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar, 74, the former head of Bank of Alexandria and current chairman of a leading Middle Eastern salt company. Mr. Omar, is accused of locking a 44-year-old maid inside his $900-a-night room at The Pierre on Sunday and sexually groping her.

Allegedly Omar called for room service requesting tissues and answered the door in his pajamas. When the maid - whom he had not specifically asked for - arrived at his 10th-floor room, he asked her to put the box of tissues on a table. As she moved toward the table, he locked the door. "He locked her in the room and had her trapped," a police source said. "He grabbed her breasts, groped her. He was grinding against her." Omar then asked the maid for her phone number, a police source said. After she gave him a made-up number he let go, and she fled the room. Omar was arrested at the hotel Monday afternoon and charged with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touching and harassment, officials said.

If these allegations hold up as true you have to ask yourself what goes on in the heads of these slime balls who can’t control themselves and think they can come to a foreign country and its open season on hotel maids. Then the stupidity factor of putting themselves in a situation where they are willing to risk everything they have achieved knowing a single complaint can bring the world down on them. Have they "gotten away with it" numerous times before where their victims were either embarrassed or too scared to report it and feel they can do it again? Do they think American working class women are “loose” and stupid and would be too intimidated to report it threatening them with “Do you know who I am – I can check into your background, etc.?

On the heels of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund last week who is accused of forcing himself on a maid at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan we now have another alleged attack by Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar, 74, the former head of Bank of Alexandria and current chairman of a leading Middle Eastern salt company. Mr. Omar, is accused of locking a 44-year-old maid inside his $900-a-night room at The Pierre on Sunday and sexually groping her.

Allegedly Omar called for room service requesting tissues and answered the door in his pajamas. When the maid - whom he had not specifically asked for - arrived at his 10th-floor room, he asked her to put the box of tissues on a table. As she moved toward the table, he locked the door. "He locked her in the room and had her trapped," a police source said. "He grabbed her breasts, groped her. He was grinding against her." Omar then asked the maid for her phone number, a police source said. After she gave him a made-up number he let go, and she fled the room. Omar was arrested at the hotel Monday afternoon and charged with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touching and harassment, officials said.

If these allegations hold up as true you have to ask yourself what goes on in the heads of these slime balls who can’t control themselves and think they can come to a foreign country and its open season on hotel maids. Then the stupidity factor of putting themselves in a situation where they are willing to risk everything they have achieved knowing a single complaint can bring the world down on them. Have they "gotten away with it" numerous times before where their victims were either embarrassed or too scared to report it and feel they can do it again? Do they think American working class women are “loose” and stupid and would be too intimidated to report it threatening them with “Do you know who I am – I can check into your background, etc.?

This is so far from this writer’s frame of reference that I’m trying to figure out what makes these guys tick. Think about the thought process that goes into just planning this out. I’ll call downstairs for a maid, get naked or greet her in my pajamas, lock the door behind her and have my way. Clearly, these foreign dignitaries have a sense of power and entitlement because of their stature and rank in their own countries. But the unmitigated gall to come to a foreign country and think you can get away with sexually attacking their working women at random is the ultimate display of arrogance and disrespect of another country’s hospitality and complete disregard for the basic laws of civility (hello, it’s illegal to grope people in this country).

There is talk now of all hotels issuing panic buttons to maids to wear while they are on the job – a very prudent idea. The panic button would ring an alarm at the security desk so that help would arrive quickly if a maid is under attack in the hotel. Hotels should also have maids work in teams so an attack would be less likely. That said, an example needs to be set here. Short of castration because they are acting like wild dogs in heat no less then a a long prison term (preferably in general population) would suffice and send the right message to these predators if these accusations prove true.

On the anniversary of its deadly takeover of the aid flotilla to Gaza, in which nine Turkish activists died in a confrontation with navy commandos, Israel is preparing to block the next flotilla as well.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel prefers a diplomatic move to thwart the flotilla expected at the end of June, but if necessary would exercise force against anyone who tries to disobey the navy’s orders and head to Gaza’s shore.

The Israel Navy has held takeover drills and mobilized reserve combatants, on the assumption the large number of vessels (about 15 ) planning to take part in the flotilla will require reinforcements. The preparations include intelligence surveillance, based mainly on open communications and Internet sites.

The navy is focusing on riot-control measures this time, saying they will use force as a last resort.

Israeli defense sources said recently that despite addressing flaws in the previous flotilla takeover, there is no alternative to taking over the boats and protesters by force – barring an agreement that would cancel the flotilla.

Former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi testified before the Turkel committee investigating the flotilla and said that if necessary, sniper fire would be used to take down violent protesters. This would prevent face-to-face clashes that hold a greater risk to soldiers’ lives.

The Turkel committee in February published the first part of its report, which on the whole justifies Israel’s position and conduct. The report upholds Israel’s argument that it was permitted to impose a blockade on Gaza and exercise force to prevent uncoordinated ships’ entry. Two foreign observers took part in writing the report.

The committee is still hearing testimonies regarding the way Israel investigates warfare incidents.

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss is expected soon to publish his own report on the flotilla. Lindenstrauss examined various aspects, from ministerial and military decisions during the preparations for the flotilla to presenting Israel’s position abroad.

Immediately after the flotilla incident Israel changed its position dramatically regarding the amount and extent of goods allowed into the Gaza Strip. Egypt’s decision to reopen the Rafah border crossing as of last weekend removes the rest of the coordinated siege both states had imposed on Gaza.

The United Nations’ health agency, the World Health Organization, now lists mobile phone use in the same “carcinogenic hazard” category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform.

But no adverse health effects have been established, the agency explains.

The decision to list cell phones as a cancer hazard came after a team of 31 scientists from 14 countries examined peer-reviewed studies on cell phone safety.

“The biggest problem we have is that we know most environmental factors take several decades of exposure before we really see the consequences,” said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Numerous studies indicate prolonged cell phone use is hazardous. The European Environmental Agency has pushed for more studies. It says cell phones may be as big a public health risk as smoking, asbestos and leaded gasoline.

In 2009, WHO reached the same conclusion. A decade-long, $30 million study into cell phones found a link between long term use and brain tumors.

The WHO’s Interphone investigation’s results showed “a significantly increased risk” of some brain tumors “related to use of mobile phones for a period of ten years or more,” the Telegraph reported.

The study showed participants in the study who used a cell phones for 10 years or more had doubled the rate of brain glioma, a type of tumor. To date, there have been no long-term studies on the effects of cell phone usage among children.

The study showed participants in the study who used a cell phones for 10 years or more had doubled the rate of brain glioma, a type of tumor. To date, there have been no long-term studies on the effects of cell phone usage among children.

In response to a number of studies revealing the dangers of cell phones, the industry now advises consumers to hold the devices away from their bodies.

Editor's Note: Carter may not have the solution, but does a good job of demonstrating how the move back to '67 borders is hardly a controversial new position by the United States.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 of Nov. 22, 1967, concluded the war of that year and has been widely acknowledged by all parties to be the basis for a peace agreement.

It was not a new U.S. policy concerning the borders of Israel, nor should it have been surprising to Israeli leaders, when President Obama stated:

“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”

U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 of Nov. 22, 1967, concluded the war of that year and has been widely acknowledged by all parties to be the basis for a peace agreement.

Its key phrases are, “Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war,” and “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” These included the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, plus lands belonging to Lebanon, Egypt and Syria.

At Camp David in 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat accepted the following words: “The agreed basis for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors is United Nations Security Council resolution 242, in all its parts.”

Specifically concerning the West Bank and Gaza, the Israelis and Egyptians mutually agreed: “In order to provide full autonomy to the inhabitants under these arrangements the Israeli military government and its civilian administration will be withdrawn as soon as a self-governing authority has been freely elected by the inhabitants of these areas. …” As a result of the Oslo Accords of 1993, a self-governing authority was freely elected in January 1996, with Yasir Arafat as president and 88 Parliament members.

The International Quartet’s Roadmap for Peace in April 2003, supported by President George W. Bush, began with these words: “A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors. The settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in 1967. …”

In addition, all 23 Arab nations and all 56 Islamic nations have offered peace and normal relations with Israel, but called upon Israel to affirm: “Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967. …”

All these statements assume, of course, that Israel may live in peace within its internationally recognized borders — but not including territories it occupied during the 1967 war. Israel withdrew from Egypt’s Sinai as a result of the 1979 peace treaty, but still occupies and is colonizing with settlers the Golan Heights of Syria, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. (When I was negotiating during the 1970s, it was clear that neither Israel nor Egypt wanted to retain control of Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in August 2005, but continues to hold under siege.)

For more than three decades, Israel’s occupation of Arab land has been the key unresolved issue. Stated simply, Israel must give up the occupied land in exchange for peace. There has never been any question regarding the occupied territory in international law as expressed through United Nations resolutions, the official policies of the United States, nor those of the International Quartet (the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia).

A number of peace proposals have included the caveat found in President Obama’s recent speech: that the pre-1967 border can be modified as a result of mutually agreeable land swaps to permit Israeli settlers in areas close to Jerusalem to remain in what is now occupied Palestinian territory, with an equivalent amount of Israeli land to be transferred to the Palestinians.

One interesting proposal that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made to me in 2005 was that this exchanged land might comprise a corridor between Gaza and the West Bank (about 35 miles), on which a railroad and highway could be built. It would be provided security by Israelis but owned and operated by Palestinians. This is just one possibility.

Two recent developments add urgency to the peace process: moves to unite the major Palestinian factions so they can negotiate with a single voice, and the potential vote in the U.N. General Assembly in September to recognize Palestine as a state. It is likely that about 150 U.N. members are prepared to take this action.

The only viable peace alternative is good faith negotiations, with the key issue remaining the same: Israel’s willingness to withdraw from the occupied territories, with the exception of small land swaps as mutually agreed with the Palestinians.

A game of Russian roulette is being played with the national debt ceiling. Fire the wrong chamber of the gun, and the result could be the second Great Depression.

The first Great Depression led to totalitarian dictatorships, war to consolidate power, and concentrations of capital in the hands of a financial elite. The trigger was a default on the global reserve currency, in that case the pound sterling. The U.S. dollar is now the global reserve currency. The concern is that default could create the same sort of global panic today. Dark visions are evoked of the President declaring a national emergency, FEMA plans locking into place, camps being readied for protesters, and the secret government taking over . . . .

This may all just be political theater, but do we really want to get close enough to the economic precipice to find out? The conservative ideologues toying with the debt ceiling are doing it to force cuts in the budget, a budget that was already approved by Congress. Congress is being held hostage by a radical minority pushing a risky agenda, one that is based on an economic model that is obsolete.

High-stakes Gambling

On May 16, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece titled “The Armaggedon Lobby,” which claimed that a “technical default” on the federal debt was just “political melodrama” and not really a big deal:

markets can figure out the difference between a genuine default when a country can’t pay its bills and a technical default of a few days if it serves the purpose of fixing America’s fiscal mess

Not so, said Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in a May 20 interview on CNBC. "That's gambling. This is the United States. You're leading the whole world. You cannot play games with that."

It is not just that the government could be brought to a standstill, with a third of its bills now being paid by borrowing; or that interest rates would shoot up, forcing thousands of homeowners into foreclosure. Failure to pay on the national debt could trigger a default on the global reserve currency. As one commentator described what could go wrong:
[T]he consequences of a US default could spark yet another global financial crisis. The US could lose its triple-A rating, which could cause a sell-off in Treasury notes by institutional and foreign investors. This sell-off could lead to higher interest rates, and banks’ balance sheets might be decimated by the decline in their bond portfolios. Thus, global banking and financial market liquidity could dry up. Lending between institutions and people or businesses could possibly cease altogether or become cost prohibitive.

The sort of chaos that could ensue was seen when Great Britain reneged on its deal to redeem pound sterling banknotes in gold in 1931. The result was the worst global depression in history.

When the pound went off the gold standard, markets panicked. People rushed to exchange their paper money for gold, in any currencies in which that was still possible. The gold wound up hidden under mattresses and in safety deposit boxes, unspent; and the banks from which it was pulled, having no reserves to back their loans, quit lending or closed their doors. Credit froze; business ground to a halt.

As other countries ran short of gold, they too were forced to take their currencies off the gold standard. The last holdouts suffered the most, including the United States, which kept its gold window open until 1933.

The 19th century had been plagued by bank runs, caused by banks having too little gold to back their outstanding loans. The Federal Reserve was instituted in 1913 ostensibly to prevent those runs, but its levee did not hold back the run of the 1930s. In 1933, the country suffered a massive banking collapse, forcing President Roosevelt to declare a banking holiday and take the U.S. dollar, too, off the gold standard.

Freed from the Bankers’ “Cross of Gold”

The transition off the gold standard was a painful one; but according to Beardsley Ruml, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the country was the better for it. In a paper read before the American Bar Association in 1946, he said that going off the gold standard had finally allowed the country to be economically sovereign:

Final freedom from the domestic money market exists for every sovereign national state where there exists an institution which functions in the manner of a modern central bank, and whose currency is not convertible into gold or into some other commodity.

Freed from the strictures of gold, Roosevelt was able to jump-start the economy with deficit spending. As Marshall Auerback details, the next four years constituted the biggest cyclical boom in U.S. economic history. Real GDP grew at a 12% rate and nominal GDP grew at a 14% rate.

Then in 1937, Roosevelt listened to the deficit hawks of his day and slashed the deficit. The result was a surge in unemployment, and the economy slipped back into depression.

What lifted the country out of the doldrums was again deficit spending, liberally engaged in to fund World War II. In wartime, few people worry about the national debt. The debt grew to 120% of GDP – twice what it is today -- and wound up sustaining another very productive period in U.S. history, one that set the country up to lead the world in manufacturing for the next half century.

On Inflation and Taxes
Ruml said federal taxes were no longer needed to fund the budget, which could be financed by issuing bonds. The principal purpose of taxes, he said, was the maintenance of a dollar which has stable purchasing power over the years. Sometimes this purpose is stated as ‘the avoidance of inflation.’"

The government could spend as needed to meet its budget, drawing on credit issued by its own central bank. It could do this until price inflation indicated a weakened purchasing power of the currency. Then, and only then, would the money supply need to be contracted with taxes.

“The dollars the government spends become purchasing power in the hands of the people who have received them,” Ruml said. “The dollars the government takes by taxes cannot be spent by the people,” so the money supply can be contracted with taxes as needed.

When the economy is in a recession, however – as it is now -- the government needs to spend in order to get purchasing power into the hands of the people. Businesses cannot hire more workers until they have more customers demanding their products, and the customers won’t come until they have money to spend. The money (“demand”) must come first. Adding money will not drive up prices until the economy is at full employment. Before that, increasing “demand” will drive up “supply” by setting the engines of production in motion. When supply and demand rise together, prices remain stable.

We now know that a government can go quite far into debt without a dangerous level of price inflation occurring – much farther than the U.S. has gone today. Besides World War II, when U.S. debt was 120% of GDP, there is the remarkable example of Japan. Japan has retained its status as the world’s third largest economy, although it has a debt to GDP ratio of 226% -- and it is still fighting deflation.

Critics of the deflationary theory point to commodity prices, which are soaring today. But if those prices were due to the economy being awash with “too much money chasing too few goods,” real estate prices would be soaring too. Instead, the real estate market has collapsed. What has actually happened is that the housing bubble has transmuted into the commodity bubble, as “hot money” has fled from one to the other. The overall money supply is still in

Dealing with the Rising Cost of Debt Service
There is a potential time bomb in a growing federal debt, but it is one that can be defused. The debt has risen from $10 trillion to $14 trillion just since the banking crisis of 2008, not from “entitlements” but due to the Wall Street collapse and bailout. Just the interest on this growing debt could cripple the tax base if interest rates were at normal levels, so they have had to be pushed almost to zero. The result has been to create a dollar carry trade. This has facilitated speculation in commodities, a major cause of today’s commodity bubbles.
There is, however, a solution to this problem, and it was discovered by Japan. The government can spend, not by issuing bonds at interest to the public, but simply by creating an overdraft at the central bank, as Beardsley Ruml recommended. The Bank of Japan now holds an amount of public debt equal to the country’s GDP! As noted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

Interest on [Japanese] debt held by the central bank is refunded back to the treasury, leaving no net cost to the government on this debt. . . . Japan continues to experience deflation, in spite of the fact that its central bank holds an amount of debt that is roughly equal to its GDP. This would be equivalent to the Fed holding $15 trillion in debt.

Like the Bank of Japan, the Federal Reserve now returns the interest it receives to the government. With a rising interest tab on the federal debt no longer a problem, private interest rates could be allowed to rise to normal levels.

Today the Fed is not permitted to buy bonds directly from the Treasury but must go through middleman bond dealers. But that problem too could be fixed. In a supporting statement in 1947, Federal Reserve Chairman Marriner Eccles discussed a bill to eliminate the unnecessary cost of these middlemen. He said the Federal Reserve had been allowed to purchase securities directly from the government from its inception in 1914 until the Banking Act of 1935. Then:

A provision was inserted in that act requiring all purchases of government securities by Federal Reserve banks to be made in the open market, which means purchased chiefly from dealers in Government bonds. Those who inserted this proviso were motivated by the mistaken theory that it would help to prevent deficit financing. . . .

Nothing constructive would be accomplished by the proviso that the Reserve System must purchase Government securities exclusively in the open market. About all such a ban means is that in making such purchases a commission has to be paid to Government bond dealers.

The interest cost and the bond dealers’ cut could both be eliminated by allowing the Treasury to borrow directly from its own central bank, interest free.

Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

We have been frightened into believing that government debt is a bad thing, but nearly all money today originates as debt. As Marriner Eccles observed in the 1930s, “That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.”

The public debt is the people’s money, and today the people are coming up short. Shrinking the public debt means shrinking more than just the services the government is expected to provide. It means shrinking the money supply itself, along with the ability to provide the jobs, wages and purchasing power necessary for a thriving economy.

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An artificial sweetener used in Diet Coke is to undergo an urgent EU safety review.
Aspartame is ingested every day by millions of people around the world in more than 6,000 well-known brands of food, drink and medicine.

However, it has been the subject of a number of studies that appear to show harmful effects on human health.

One recent study linked diet drinks containing aspartame to premature births, while another suggested it could cause cancer.

To date, health watchdogs, including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), have ruled out any link to ill-health.

But after several MEPs asked for a new investigation following pressure from European health campaigners, EU Commission officials have now asked the EFSA to bring forward a review that had been planned for 2020.

The concern about artificial sweeteners such as aspartame relates to the fact that they contain methanol, a nerve toxin which can be metabolised in the body to form two more nerve toxins: formic acid and formaldehyde, the chemical used to preserve dead bodies.

Earlier this year, experts on Britain’s Committee on Toxicity(CoT) ruled that ‘long-term exposure to methanol consumed through food, including from aspartame, is unlikely to be harmful to health’.
The committee pointed out that methanol is also found in fruit and vegetables.
As a result of the experts’ conclusions, the FSA ruled the consumption of aspartame ‘is not of concern at the current levels of use’.

Despite this verdict, the FSA is currently recruiting volunteers for an investigation into anecdotal reports of ill health, including headaches and stomach upsets, associated with aspartame.
The watchdog announced the research project in 2009, however it has had difficulties recruiting volunteers who claim to suffer problems.

EFSA spokesman, Lucia De Luca, said: ‘Aspartame is one of hundreds of flavourings. It is on the market because it has been assessed in the past and considered safe.

‘We have received an official request for a complete re-evaluation of the safety of aspartame.
‘The re-evaluation is scheduled for 2020 but the Commission asked us to do this re-evaluation now in the light of recent events.

A study last year of 60,000 mothers-to be found a correlation between the amount of diet drink consumed and an early birth

‘In the past year, there have been a couple of studies looking at aspartame and concerns expressed by consumer groups and others.’

In July last year, EU-funded research by Danish scientists, which looked at almost 60,000 mothers-to-be, found a correlation between the amount of diet drink consumed and an early birth.
Previously, the Independent Ramazzini Foundation in Italy has published research suggesting aspartame caused several types of cancer in rats at doses very close to the current acceptable daily intake for humans.

Both of these have been evaluated by EFSA experts, who have rejected any risk to human health.
Aspartame is manufactured by Ajinomoto Sweeteners Europe. The firm said it welcomes the decision to bring forward the safety evaluation.

A spokesman said: ‘EFSA reaffirmed the safety of aspartame in 2006, 2009 and 2010. In addition, recent allegations about the safety of aspartame made in France and by a handful of MEPs have already been dismissed by EFSA.

‘This review of the extensive body of science on aspartame will provide additional confirmation of the ingredient’s safety.

‘By providing an excellent sweet taste, aspartame makes a useful contribution to a healthy, calorie-controlled diet and can help people to avoid overweight and obesity, and their associated diseases.’

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) which are used to create new food seeds and crops, are being tied to use as a potential biological weapon in creating infertility in places around the world.

A report published on May 28th tied together that the international organization Codex, which is seeking to regulate every food, mineral, and herb in the world used for consumption, does not consider GMO created products as food, and thus they are being placed in a separate sphere of attributes that can be used for alternative functions.
Including birth control and creating infertility in a nation or population.

There has been a concerted national effort by citizens to have the US government label GMOs. Opposing it are government intent not only to keep them unlabeled in the US but efforts at the international level by the US government to remove all labeling of GMOs through Codex. The problem is that Codex applies to food, and GMOs don't qualify.
The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.”

Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world “over-population. – Salem News

Besides the creation and use of GMO corn and other staples in places like South America, Mexico, and Africa, an interesting data point was discovered in the US shortly after GMO foods (BT-Corn) were approved in 1996. Since that time, birth rates in the US have been falling, and accelerating in decline since 1999, just three years after the introduction of the GMO to the food supply.

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Genetically modified organisms (GMO) which are used to create new food seeds and crops, are being tied to use as a potential biological weapon in creating infertility in places around the world.
A report published on May 28th tied together that the international organization Codex, which is seeking to regulate every food, mineral, and herb in the world used for consumption, does not consider GMO created products as food, and thus they are being placed in a separate sphere of attributes that can be used for alternative functions.

Including birth control and creating infertility in a nation or population.

There has been a concerted national effort by citizens to have the US government label GMOs. Opposing it are government intent not only to keep them unlabeled in the US but efforts at the international level by the US government to remove all labeling of GMOs through Codex. The problem is that Codex applies to food, and GMOs don't qualify.
The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.”

Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world “over-population. – Salem News

Besides the creation and use of GMO corn and other staples in places like South America, Mexico, and Africa, an interesting data point was discovered in the US shortly after GMO foods (BT-Corn) were approved in 1996. Since that time, birth rates in the US have been falling, and accelerating in decline since 1999, just three years after the introduction of the GMO to the food supply.

Since GMO food is not considered a natural commodity for consumption by the UN's regulatory body (Codex), and scientists have purposefully introduced spermacidal modifications into corn for the purpose of controlling world populations, then unequivocally, one of the many purposes of GMO created foods is for the use as a biological weapon.

Many global foundations have been pushing for the expansion of GMO foods, especially corn, soybeans, and rice to help end hunger and poverty around the world, and primarily in third world countries. The Gates Foundation, the Rockfeller Foundation, and former UN Chief Kofi Annan's Agra organization are just three powerful entities supplying funds and promotions to expand GMO use in many countries.

There is also an ongoing battle between citizens and the FDA to demand labelling of GMO based food products, but to this point, the government agency has been able to keep the public in the dark on what is in their food. Since GMO based products are not considered food under UN regulations, many questions still remain as to the reasons why the FDA allows them in consumable foods at all.

Creating a food source or seed meant to be eaten by man as a dietary staple which has been modified to bring sterility or outright birth control is in essence, creating and distributing a biological weapon for the sole purpose of lowering birth rates and populations in one or more locations. Since GMO based products are not considered food according to the UN Codex, but are being allowed into the world's diet as a consumable, creates many questions as to the real purpose of expanding GMO use into the food supply.

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Perhaps I am atypical, but I’ve always been hypersensitive to what’s going on around me in the real world. Among my earliest childhood memories are the gas lines that followed the 1973 Arab oil embargo; the event which probably planted the seed that sprouted into awareness of peak oil during my fifth decade on this planet. Despite being just a kid at the time, I was keenly aware that my family’s cars needed that gasoline that was being rationed, and we furthermore needed those cars to do just about everything that was important--from my dad getting to work in the morning, to me getting to school, to my mom going grocery shopping every weekend.

My heightened awareness is likely also the reason why I still have vivid memories of a headline that appeared in our local small town newspaper one day several years after those gas lines had abated. The headline read in stark simplicity: “60 to 90 Years' Supply of Oil Left,” and it really grabbed this thirteen-year-old’s attention. Being a thoughtful youth, I did a quick mental calculation and realized that if the headline was accurate it meant if I was lucky there was a chance I would not live to see the end of the oil age.

Flash forward to middle age, and while researching this article I unearthed a reference to what it was that generated that headline from so many years ago. According to a Time magazine story published in October 1978, the source of that “60 to 90 year” figure was an official report produced for the Central Intelligence Agency by Richard Nehring, a policy analyst for the Rand Corporation. The Time article, entitled “Oil: What’s Left Out There?” centered on two basic questions: “How much oil does the world have left?” and “When will it run out?”

These were hotly debated topics at the time. The article points out that President Jimmy Carter, in his drive to get an energy program through Congress, had been relying on a previous CIA analysis estimating that world oil supplies would be depleted by the end of the 1980s. Nehring’s report, therefore, represented a considerable change from the agency’s previous thinking on the issue and also had important political ramifications.

What strikes me looking back in hindsight is just how accurate Nehring’s prediction has turned out to be. It is now nearly 33 years later, and the general consensus among Peak Oil analysts today is that the world has something on the order of 35-40 years of remaining oil supplies at current consumption rates (putting aside the fact that production rates will no doubt fall well before then). Add those two figures together and the headline that grabbed my attention when I was a kid will hit almost the exact middle of its 60-90 year target range.

Even more telling is what the Nehring paper had to say about how his prediction would be affected by increasing oil demand: “If demand does increase and supplies are being used up more quickly, Rand experts believe that energy requirements could still be met through conservation measures and the use of special techniques to squeeze more oil out of existing reserves.” Done and done. Conservation through greater efficiency in the early 1980s caused oil consumption to actually fall for awhile and special techniques are now used to extract more oil from older fields.

Nehring’s credibility is further enhanced by a caution added to his relatively optimistic analysis: “the world's reserves can really be significantly increased only by additional recovery from known fields and by further discoveries of ‘supergiant’ fields containing at least five billion barrels of oil.” As we now know, the former has become standard practice while the latter has not occurred at all. In fact, the Rand report noted at the time that new discoveries of supergiant fields had already almost completely tapered off.

The Time article goes on to list the reasons why the oil crisis seemed somewhat less dire a half-decade after the appearance of those first gas lines. Among the factors cited was the development of already discovered supergiant oil fields in the North Sea, Alaska and Mexico, which we now know were largely responsible for oil prices returning to their pre-oil shock, inflation-adjusted norms during the 1980s and 1990s.

So what do we learn from this little detour through the recent past? First and foremost, the evidence is right there in black-and-white that America’s political leadership has for the past third of a century had available at its disposal a highly accurate prediction from its own intelligence analysts as to how long conventional oil supplies were likely going to last. The fact that the more dire previous predictions regarding oil production relied upon by Carter were just then being overtaken by positive developments in the oil industry did not lessen the obvious need for long term planning to prepare the nation for the inevitable day when the oil would run out for good.

History records what happened next. Despite being the last president to take oil depletion seriously as a political issue, Carter hedged his bets and issued the Carter Doctrine, making it American policy to guarantee uninterrupted oil shipments from the Middle East, by force if necessary. Among his opponents during his 1980 reelection bid was Republican Congressman John Anderson--running as an independent—whose platform called for even more drastic conservation measures like a 50 cent a gallon gasoline tax (equivalent to about $1.50 a gallon today). Both men were of course defeated by Ronald Reagan, the first candidate to run on the notion of unfettered American exceptionalism, including the ludicrous idea that even geologic reality could be overcome by enough positive thinking.

For over three decades Americans have been living in a dream world created by politicians of both parties and reinforced by our mainstream media. Despite some indications that cracks are beginning to appear in the façade, most people have yet to awaken to peak oil reality. The guy driving the Hummer with the “Drill, Baby, Drill” bumper sticker plastered on the back is just as firmly in denial as he ever was. If you don’t believe me, read the comments section below any mainstream press Internet article about high gasoline prices and you’ll see more than you’ll likely ever care to see of the infantile mindset that still predominates among large numbers of our fellow citizens when it comes to energy issues.

As yet another quadrennial political spectacle begins to unfold before us, we must lament the fact that no serious candidate vying to take the presidential oath of office on January 20, 2013, has publicly acknowledged the stark realities of peak oil and resource depletion. Those of us in the peak oil movement are now also aware, of course, that oil production is going to drop off steeply long before we reach Nehring's projected date range for supplies to run out. What was once an inconvenient truth stubbornly denied by Reagan in the name of short-term political advantage is now emerging as the most serious crisis this nation has faced since its founding. That this is so should not come as a surprise to anyone. After all, we were given a very clear warning about what’s coming all the way back in 1978.

An Arab League committee decided on Saturday to seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, it said in a statement.

The Arab League’s peace process follow-up committee said it would request membership for the state of Palestine at the UN General Assembly’s meeting in New York in September.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani speaks as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) listens on during the opening of the Arab League Monitoring Committee in Doha on May 28, 2011.

“The committee decided to go to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” it said in a statement.

Earlier on Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said there were “no shared foundations” for peace talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seeking UN recognition of Palestinian statehood was his only option.

Abbas expressed concern that taking the diplomatic step opposed by the United States and Israel could result in financial sanctions and urged Arab states to fill any gap.

While he left room for a compromise, saying a resumption of peace talks on terms acceptable to the Palestinians would avoid the UN move, the remarks were some of Abbas’s bleakest yet on the likelihood of more negotiations.

Palestinian leaders have said Netanyahu’s ideas for peace with the Palestinians, outlined in a speech to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, put more obstacles in the path of an already moribund peace process.

“We see from the conditions that Netanyahu laid out that there are no shared foundations … for negotiations. Our fundamental option is to go to the United Nations,” Abbas said in his opening remarks.

“This is no secret, we have said it to the Americans and the Europeans and the Israelis, our only option is to go to the United Nations,” he said.

Monday, May 30, 2011

On May 5th a Pima County Sheriff’s special weapons team malfunctioned asymmetrically:
SWAT arrived, broke into a private home, and shot a homeowner in less than a minute, but medical attention for that same homeowner was delayed for more than an hour. Why the haste...and the delay?

Police serve and protect. Most law enforcement officers serve the public unselfishly and with a day-to-day heroism matched only in our Armed Services. The May 5th unbalanced actions and reactions of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department were not due to the individual officers.
Police militarization killed Marine veteran, Jose Guerena.

Misuse of military-style special weapons teams to serve search warrants on residences of veterans and gun owners has become common. Traditionally, detectives served daylight residential search warrants quietly, politely and with as little disruption as possible. Although militarized raids are supposedly safer for officers, the new tactics endanger the people police should be protecting. On May 5th many police bullets were found to have passed through neighbors’ homes.

During the May 5th assault, unnecessary speed prevented communication with civilians. Videos and reports show no communication at all between Deputies and Jose Guerena in the 45 seconds before shooting began. Why not?

“As I got out of the Bearcat, uh, Almaraz, I think, left the siren going too long, ‘cause we don’t wanna keep it going, because obviously then we can’t hear.
Page 11, line 17

“…the siren had gone on for too long.” (Echavarri, 2011)

A 45 second video (Echavarri, 2011) shows the siren drowning out police commands until six seconds before the door was breached. Shooting began almost immediately. Assaulting a private home like an enemy fortress is senseless. Needless haste and sirens are counterproductive. Those decisions – and delaying medical aid – are policy and training.

After the Jan. 8th Jared Loughner murders, Sheriff Dupnik was full of angry accusations. Now his policies have caused the death of a citizen during service of a search warrant. Could the Sheriff explain why a siren was used? Or why deputies were so quick to shoot and so slow to allow medics (already on the scene) to render aid to a Marine veteran?

Sheriff Dupnik is ultimately responsible. For three weeks he has been uncharacteristically silent.

Potential "Balkanization" could shape this new map if
widespread consensus fails with a proper overthrow.

The truth is if we are waiting for the ballot box to make those fundamental changes in government. I would not hold my breath waiting for it to happen. We have been trying for many election cycles to put the right people in office to reverse course of our nation or state only to be burned. We can not wait for the next election because time is crucial and they highjacked counting the vote with Electronic voting machines so politicians can maintain power.

The people we sent to Washington and Austin Texas completely ignores the will of the people. They are following the agenda of a power completely alien to the people and not in the interest of the State. When the people we elected had the opportunity to do the right thing with overwhelming support from the people.They cave in, get weak knees and compromise with the special interest. We can not get the courts to rule in favor of the Constitution when it comes to our privacy and being secure in our persons. They decide in favor of a corrupt police state. The oath of office is for those in government from local up to the top people in power. That oath is just a ceremonial right of passage that really has no meaning to them.

We wanted the debt ceiling not raised in Washington and the people we sent to stop the spending caved in. Congress ignores its responsibility when the President is starting wars around the world who have not provoked any attack on us or threatened our national security. Congress cares nothing about keeping the executive Branch in check on his power to wage war or the corruption rampant in the White House. These war or police actions are costing this nation to the point of bankruptcy.When it would serve the congress well to do the right thing. They do the opposite. They reinstated the Patriot act and expanded the war powers of the President. They are not listening to the will of the people.

In Texas were I live. I think what happened last week was the last straw that broke the camels back.Because when the State Senate caved into the demands of the Federal Government if they passed a bill the Texans overwhelmingly supported that reenforced state law prohibiting the TSA form groping Texans as a condition to board a plane. This agency violated Texas state law. They are charged with a felony. No one in the State government is defending Texas from the onslaught of the Federal government on Texas.The EPA shutting down our oil fields and drilling offshore.The unwillingness and the lack of security securing the southern border.The state is rolling over to tyranny without a fight. There is no leadership taking a stand against this illegal incursion in the State of Texas against a bully out of Washington DC.

GuardianReport claims soldiers may be British, possibly SAS – which would break UN resolution over any 'occupation force'

Al-Jazeera footage captures 'western troops on the ground' in Libya

Report claims soldiers may be British, possibly SAS – which would break UN resolution over any 'occupation force'

An al-Jazeera report appears to show western special forces on the frontline in Libya, in what the TV channel said was "evidence for the first time of allied boots on the ground".

A group of six westerners are clearly visible in the report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them are armed and wear informal sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps and cotton Arab scarves.

The sixth, apparently most senior of the group, carries no visible weapon and wears a pink, short-sleeved shirt. It is possible he is an intelligence officer. The group is seen talking to rebels and then quickly leaving the scene on being spotted by the al-Jazeera television crew.

The reporter, Tony Birtley, a veteran war correspondent, said: "Here a group of armed foreigners, possibly British, are seen liaising with the fighters. It could be to facilitate forthcoming helicopter attacks." In the report, first broadcast on Sunday, Birtley did not say why he thought the soldiers were British.

There have been numerous reports in the British press that SAS soldiers are acting as spotters in Libya to help Nato warplanes target pro-Gaddafi forces. In March six special forces soldiers and two MI6 officers were detained by opposition fighters when they landed on an abortive mission to meet rebel leaders in Benghazi, in an embarrassing episode for the SAS. The group were withdrawn soon afterwards and a new "liaison team" was sent in their place.

In April William Hague, the foreign secretary, announced that an expanded military liaison team would be dispatched to work with the National Transitional Council in Benghazi. Hague said the team would help the rebels improve "organisational structures, communications and logistics" but stressed that: "Our officers will not be involved in training or arming the opposition's fighting forces, nor will they be involved in the planning or execution of the NTC's military operations or in the provision of any other form of operational military advice."

There were unconfirmed reports at the time that Britain was planning to send former SAS soldiers and other experienced soldiers to Libya under the cover of private security companies, paid for by Arab states, to train the rebel forces.

In the past few days there have been British press reports that SAS soldiers would be flying in British Apache helicopter gunships now being deployed off the Libyan coast. Their job would be to help the pilots identify pro-Gaddafi targets on the ground.

Asked for comment on Sunday, a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: "We don't have any forces out there."

The subject is sensitive as the March UN security council resolution authorising the use of force in Libya specifically excludes "a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory".

Warsaw - Secret prisons operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Polish territory violated international law and the Polish constitution according to legal experts, reported the daily Gazeta Wyborcza Monday, citing sources close to an investigation.

The CIA held terror suspects inside a military intelligence training base in Stare Kiejkuty, north-eastern Poland from 2002 to 2005, anonymous Polish intelligence officers have said.

Public prosecutor Jerzy Mierzewski had wanted to charge officials from the 2001-2005 Democratic Left Alliance government with violating the constitution, unlawful detention and participation in crimes against humanity, the daily reported.

The left-wing party is today Poland's second largest opposition party. Polish politicians who were in power when the prisons allegedly operated have denied allegations that CIA prisons were located in the country.

Mierzewski, however, was withdrawn from the case two weeks ago, the daily wrote. His supervisor, Dariusz Korneluk, declined to comment on the reason for the dismissal.

Mierzewski had asked international law experts in February to determine whether the CIA prisons were lawful and constitutional, the daily said.

The law experts replied in May in a 50-page report that the prisons were unlawful, according to both international law and the Polish constitution. The US regulations that allow for waterboarding were also against international law, the experts added.

Prosecutors have been investigating allegations about the secret prisons since 2008, but have not released their findings.

According to Wyborcza, Poland and the US agreed that the US would not reply to a Polish request for assistance in the case. This would prolong the investigation until the case could be suspended, the daily reported, citing a source in the prosecutor's office.

Prosecutors representing Saudi national Adb al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, claim the man was tortured at the facility between 2002 to 2003. Al-Nashiri was subjected to waterboarding and mock executions with a power drill while he was naked and hooded, the prosecutors said.

Flight logs obtained from Polish officials in February 2010 confirmed that CIA planes landed in Poland during 2003. Human rights groups suspect these were rendition-related flights.

The logs, which were obtained by human rights organizations, showed that CIA-chartered planes landed in Szymany, north-eastern Poland, at least six times in 2003.

New York-based Human Rights Watch claimed in a 2005 report that secret CIA prisons in Poland were used to house suspected terrorists from Afghanistan.

AFGHAN president Hamid Karzi last night issued a "last warning" to Nato and US forces in Afghanistan, after a Nato airstrike targeting insurgents inadvertently hit two civilian homes in the volatile southwestern Helmand province, killing 12 children and two women.

Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the alliance launched the airstrike late on Saturday in retaliation for an attack earlier in the day on a US Marine base in Helmand's northwest district of Nawzad.

He said Nato hit two civilian houses, killing five girls, seven boys and two women. Male relatives cradled the bodies of several young children, who were wrapped in bloody sheets and placed side to side. They brought them in the back of a truck to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

"My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed … the Taleban were far away from my home. Why was my house bombed?" Noor Agha, a relative of one of those killed, asked.

Mr Karzai blamed US troops for the airstrikes, in which six other civilians were wounded.

The president has repeatedly called on coalition forces to minimise night raids and airstrikes, and to clear the operations with his forces.

"We have told the Americans and Nato forces several times that unco-ordinated operations will result in the killing of innocent civilians and that such operations are inhumane, but still no-one has listened," Mr Karzai said last night.

He added that his condemnation would be "the last warning to Nato forces, American forces, and American officials".

Nato spokesman Major Tim James said a joint coalition and Afghan delegation was travelling last night to the site to investigate. He did not confirm the airstrike and provided no details about it, or about the earlier attack on the Marines.

Civilian deaths are a constant source of tension between Nato and Afghan officials.

Helmand borders Pakistan and is an insurgent bastion. The province's vast poppy fields are the Taleban's prime profit centre.

Afghan insurgents have stepped up a spring offensive across the country.

The Afghan public, which has grown increasingly hostile to foreigners as the nearly decade-long war continues, tends to perceive the Nato raids as capturing the wrong people or mistreating civilians during searches of private homes and compounds.

The latest civilian casualties are likely to add to the hostility.

The air strike comes days after protests by thousands of people against a night raid by Nato troops in which four people, including two women, were killed.

Twelve people were killed during those protests and in clashes with police in Takhar. More than 80 were wounded.

In February, four days of operations by Afghan and foreign troops killed 64 civilians in the eastern Kunar province, Afghan officials said, including many women and children.

A Nato rocket attack last July killed 39 civilians, almost all women or children, in Helmand.

On Saturday, Mr Karzai ordered the Defence Ministry to take control of the night raids, saying Afghan troops should be carrying out the sensitive operations themselves.

Afghans claim that the raids, carried out on houses suspected of harbouring insurgents, often lead to civilian casualties.

Under a plan agreed by Nato leaders, foreign troops will begin handing over security responsibilities to Afghan troops from July, with a plan to withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

The five decade-long United States embargo against Cuba could finally be lifted after the discovery of an enormous oil field in Cuban waters.

The world's longest-running embargo has endured in part because there was little the US wanted to buy from its impoverished neighbour.

But the discovery of between five and 20 billion barrels of oil in the deep waters off Cuba's north coast, only 60 miles away from Florida, has made American businessmen and politicians consider lifting the embargo.

Repsol, the Spanish oil firm, will start exploratory drilling within months. If it strikes a large deposit, the trade embargo could be significantly revised or removed, according to Professor Mark Jones, an expert on Latin America at the Rice University of Texas.

"The greater the drilling and production, the greater the pressure will be to engage in a complete overhaul of the trade embargo, either getting rid of it altogether or watering it down substantially," he said.

"I think it is fairly realistic, since the embargo is an anachronism of the Cold War sustained only by a misguided fear of a backlash from anti-Castro Cuban Americans."

Opponents of the US embargo argue that it has failed to drive Fidel and Raul Castro from power and that if Cuba becomes rich from its oil, regime change is even less likely. They also argue that warmer relations between the two countries could help stave off an environmental crisis if there is a spill from the field.

Jorge Pinon, visiting research fellow with Florida International University's Cuban Research Insitute, warned: "The US embargo means Repsol can't pick up the phone to Washington. Any equipment to help in a problem would have to come from the UK or Norway or somewhere else." Repsol will drill at least one and possibly as many as five wells in waters of similar depth to those where an explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig caused eleven deaths and led to an environmental catastrophe. In the event of a further disaster, as much as 90 per cent of any spill could end up in US waters.

"If there is any leverage that could push the Obama administration or the US Congress to push for change it would be from an environmental standpoint." said John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

He argued the US could treat Cuban oil in the same way it treats oil from Venezuela: "We don't like them but we like their product and we are going to buy it".

The current embargo expires this September. However, Prof Jones suggested that it is unlikely that Barack Obama will move to lift it before the conclusion of his next run for President.

This month, in the Middle East, has seen the unmaking of the President of the United States.
More than that, it has witnessed the lowest prestige of the US in the region since Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz on the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in 1945.

While Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu played out their farce in Washington – Obama grovelling as usual – the Arabs got on with the serious business of changing their world, demonstrating and fighting and dying for freedoms they have never possessed.

Obama waffled on about change in the Middle East – and about America's new role in the region. It was pathetic. "What is this 'role' thing?" an Egyptian friend asked me at the weekend. "Do they still believe we care about what they think?"

And it is true. Obama's failure to support the Arab revolutions until they were all but over lost the US most of its surviving credit in the region. Obama was silent on the overthrow of Ben Ali, only joined in the chorus of contempt for Mubarak two days before his flight, condemned the Syrian regime – which has killed more of its people than any other dynasty in this Arab "spring", save for the frightful Gaddafi – but makes it clear that he would be happy to see Assad survive, waves his puny fist at puny Bahrain's cruelty and remains absolutely, stunningly silent over Saudi Arabia.

And he goes on his knees before Israel. Is it any wonder, then, that Arabs are turning their backs on America, not out of fury or anger, nor with threats or violence, but with contempt? It is the Arabs and their fellow Muslims of the Middle East who are themselves now making the decisions.

Turkey is furious with Assad because he twice promised to speak of reform and democratic elections – and then failed to honour his word. The Turkish government has twice flown delegations to Damascus and, according to the Turks, Assad lied to the foreign minister on the second visit, baldly insisting that he would recall his brother Maher's legions from the streets of Syrian cities. He failed to do so. The torturers continue their work.

Watching the hundreds of refugees pouring from Syria across the northern border of Lebanon, the Turkish government is now so fearful of a repeat of the great mass Iraqi Kurdish refugee tide that overwhelmed their border in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war that it has drawn up its own secret plans to prevent the Kurds of Syria moving in their thousands into the Kurdish areas of south-eastern Turkey.

Turkish generals have thus prepared an operation that would send several battalions of Turkish troops into Syria itself to carve out a "safe area" for Syrian refugees inside Assad's caliphate.

The Turks are prepared to advance well beyond the Syrian border town of Al Qamishli – perhaps half way to Deir el-Zour (the old desert killing fields of the 1915 Armenian Holocaust, though speak it not) – to provide a "safe haven" for those fleeing the slaughter in Syria's cities.

The Qataris are meanwhile trying to prevent Algeria from resupplying Gaddafi with tanks and armoured vehicles – this was one of the reasons why the Emir of Qatar, the wisest bird in the Arabian Gulf, visited the Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, last week. Qatar is committed to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi; its planes are flying over Libya from Crete and – undisclosed until now – it has Qatari officers advising the rebels inside the city of Misrata in western Libya; but if Algerian armour is indeed being handed over to Gaddafi to replace the material that has been destroyed in air strikes, it would account for the ridiculously slow progress which the Nato campaign is making against Gaddafi.
Of course, it all depends on whether Bouteflika really controls his army – or whether the Algerian "pouvoir", which includes plenty of secretive and corrupt generals, are doing the deals. Algerian equipment is superior to Gaddafi's and thus for every tank he loses, Ghaddafi might be getting an improved model to replace it. Below Tunisia, Algeria and Libya share a 750-mile desert frontier, an easy access route for weapons to pass across the border.

But the Qataris are also attracting Assad's venom. Al Jazeera's concentration on the Syrian uprising – its graphic images of the dead and wounded far more devastating than anything our soft western television news shows would dare broadcast – has Syrian state television nightly spitting at the Emir and at the state of Qatar. The Syrian government has now suspended up to £4 billion of Qatari investment projects, including one belonging to the Qatar Electricity and Water Company.

Amid all these vast and epic events – Yemen itself may yet prove to be the biggest bloodbath of all, while the number of Syria's "martyrs" have now exceeded the victims of Mubarak's death squads five months ago – is it any surprise that the frolics of Messrs Netanyahu and Obama appear so irrelevant?
Indeed, Obama's policy towards the Middle East – whatever it is – sometimes appears so muddled that it is scarcely worthy of study. He supports, of course, democracy – then admits that this may conflict with America's interests.

In that wonderful democracy called Saudi Arabia, the US is now pushing ahead with a £40 billion arms deal and helping the Saudis to develop a new "elite" force to protect the kingdom's oil and future nuclear sites. Hence Obama's fear of upsetting Saudi Arabia, two of whose three leading brothers are now so incapacitated that they can no longer make sane decisions – unfortunately, one of these two happens to be King Abdullah – and his willingness to allow the Assad family's atrocity-prone regime to survive.

Of course, the Israelis would far prefer the "stability" of the Syrian dictatorship to continue; better the dark caliphate you know than the hateful Islamists who might emerge from the ruins. But is this argument really good enough for Obama to support when the people of Syria are dying in the streets for the kind of democracy that the US president says he wants to see in the region?

One of the vainest elements of American foreign policy towards the Middle East is the foundational idea that the Arabs are somehow more stupid than the rest of us, certainly than the Israelis, more out of touch with reality than the West, that they don't understand their own history.

Thus they have to be preached at, lectured, and cajoled by La Clinton and her ilk – much as their dictators did and do, father figures guiding their children through life. But Arabs are far more literate than they were a generation ago; millions speak perfect English and can understand all too well the political weakness and irrelevance in the president's words.

Listening to Obama's 45-minute speech this month – the "kick off' to four whole days of weasel words and puffery by the man who tried to reach out to the Muslim world in Cairo two years ago, and then did nothing – one might have thought that the American President had initiated the Arab revolts, rather than sat on the sidelines in fear.

There was an interesting linguistic collapse in the president's language over those critical four days. On Thursday 19 May, he referred to the continuation of Israeli "settlements". A day later, Netanyahu was lecturing him on "certain demographic changes that have taken place on the ground".

Then when Obama addressed the American Aipac lobby group (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) on the Sunday, he had cravenly adopted Netanyahu's own preposterous expression. Now he, too, spoke of "new demographic realities on the ground." Who would believe that he was talking about internationally illegal Jewish colonies built on land stolen from Arabs in one of the biggest property heists in the history of "Palestine"?

Delay in peace-making will undermine Israeli security, Obama announced – apparently unaware that Netanyahu's project is to go on delaying and delaying and delaying until there is no land left for the "viable" Palestinian state which the United States and the European Union supposedly wish to see.
Then we had the endless waffle about the 1967 borders. Netanyahu called them "defenceless" (though they seemed to have been pretty defendable for the 18 years prior to the Six Day War) and Obama – oblivious to the fact that Israel must be the only country in the world to have an eastern land frontier but doesn't know where it is – then says he was misunderstood when he talked about 1967. It doesn't matter what he says.

George W Bush caved in years ago when he gave Ariel Sharon a letter which stated America's acceptance of "already existing major Israeli population centres" beyond the 1967 lines. To those Arabs prepared to listen to Obama's spineless oration, this was a grovel too far. They simply could not understand the reaction of Netanyahu's address to Congress. How could American politicians rise and applaud Netanyahu 55 times – 55 times – with more enthusiasm than one of the rubber parliaments of Assad, Saleh and the rest?

And what on earth did the Great Speechifier mean when he said that "every country has the right to self-defence" but that Palestine would be "demilitarised"? What he meant was that Israel could go on attacking the Palestinians (as in 2009, for example, when Obama was treacherously silent) while the Palestinians would have to take what was coming to them if they did not behave according to the rules – because they would have no weapons to defend themselves.

As for Netanyahu, the Palestinians must choose between unity with Hamas or peace with Israel. All of which was very odd. When there was no unity, Netanyahu told us all that he had no Palestinian interlocutor because the Palestinians were disunited. Yet when they unite, they are disqualified from peace talks.

Of course, cynicism grows the longer you live in the Middle East. I recall, for example, travelling to Gaza in the early 1980s when Yasser Arafat was running his PLO statelet in Beirut. Anxious to destroy Arafat's prestige in the occupied territories, the Israeli government decided to give its support to an Islamist group in Gaza called Hamas. In fact, I actually saw with my own eyes the head of the Israeli army's Southern Command negotiating with bearded Hamas officials, giving them permission to build more mosques. It's only fair to say, of course, that we were also busy at the time, encouraging a certain Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan.

But the Israelis did not give up on Hamas. They later held another meeting with the organisation in the West Bank; the story was on the front page of the Jerusalem Post the next day. But there wasn't a whimper from the Americans.

Then another moment that I can recall over the long years. Hamas and Islamic Jihad members – all Palestinians – were, in the early 1990s, thrown across the Israeli border into southern Lebanon where they spent more than a year camping on a freezing mountainside. I would visit them from time to time and on one occasion mentioned that I would be travelling to Israel next day. Immediately, one of the Hamas men ran to his tent and returned with a notebook.

He then proceeded to give me the home telephone numbers of three senior Israeli politicians – two of whom are still prominent today – and, when I reached Jerusalem and called the numbers, they all turned out to be correct. In other words, the Israeli government had been in personal and direct contact with Hamas.

But now the narrative has been twisted out of all recognition. Hamas are the super-terrorists, the "al-Qa'ida" representatives in the unified Palestinian leadership, the men of evil who will ensure that no peace ever takes place between Palestinians and Israeli. If only this were true, the real al-Qa'ida would be more than happy to take responsibility. But it is not true. In the same context, Obama stated that the Palestinians would have to answer questions about Hamas.

But why should they? What Obama and Netanyahu think about Hamas is now irrelevant to them. Obama warns the Palestinians not to ask for statehood at the United Nations in September. But why on earth not? If the people of Egypt and Tunisia and Yemen and Libya and Syria – we are all waiting for the next revolution (Jordan? Bahrain again? Morocco?) – can fight for freedom and dignity, why shouldn't the Palestinians? Lectured for decades on the need for non-violent protest, the Palestinians elect to go to the UN with their cry for legitimacy – only to be slapped down by Obama.

Having read all of the "Palestine Papers" which Al-Jazeera revealed, there is no doubt that "Palestine's" official negotiators will go to any lengths to produce some kind of statelet. Mahmoud Abbas, who managed to write a 600-page book on the "peace process" without once mentioning the word "occupation", could even cave in over the UN project, fearful of Obama's warning that it would be an attempt to "isolate" Israel and thus de-legitimise the Israeli state – or "the Jewish state" as the US president now calls it.

But Netanyahu is doing more than anyone to delegitimise his own state; indeed, he is looking more and more like the Arab buffoons who have hitherto littered the Middle East. Mubarak saw a "foreign hand" in the Egyptian revolution (Iran, of course). So did the Crown Prince of Bahrain (Iran again). So did Gaddafi (al-Qa'ida, western imperialism, you name it), So did Saleh of Yemen (al-Qa'ida, Mossad and America). So did Assad of Syria (Islamism, probably Mossad, etc). And so does Netanyahu (Iran, naturally enough, Syria, Lebanon, just about anyone you can think of except for Israel itself).

But as this nonsense continues, so the tectonic plates shudder. I doubt very much if the Palestinians will remain silent. If there's an "intifada" in Syria, why not a Third Intifada in "Palestine"? Not a struggle of suicide bombers but of mass, million-strong protests.

If the Israelis have to shoot down a mere few hundred demonstrators who tried – and in some cases succeeded – in crossing the Israeli border almost two weeks ago, what will they do if confronted by thousands or a million.

Obama says no Palestinian state must be declared at the UN. But why not? Who cares in the Middle East what Obama says? Not even, it seems, the Israelis. The Arab spring will soon become a hot summer and there will be an Arab autumn, too.

By then, the Middle East may have changed forever. What America says will matter nothing.

Fatally Flawed: The Pursuit of Justice in a Suspicious Election

Voices of Opposition

Basic Statistics for U.S. Imperialism

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The World Reacts...

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See Hillary Clinton Make Fun of Gaddafi's Murder

Here is Israel's Crap Treatment of an American Jew

People participate in movements when that particular movement

(1) meets their concrete and tangible needs,(2) offers individuals real experiences in the movement's outcome(3) provides a sense of community,(4) makes available ongoing education and skills training and(5) shows direct and effective ways for people to take further action.

A loose interpretation of a message sent on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 by the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy

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Free Trade's Race to the Bottom

A worker walks out of a factory building outfitted with nets, installed to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths, at a Foxconn factory, in Langfang, Hebei Province August 3, 2010. There have been nearly a dozen suicides at Foxconn plants around China this year alone, prompting calls for investigations into poor working conditions at the plants that make parts for customers such as Apple, HP and Dell. (REUTERS/Jason Lee) #

Portland 9/11 Truth Meetup Group and the Smell of Bacon

You can't have peacefor the sake of peace.Peace is a consequenceof an equitable arrangement.